


Babysitters

by SerMisty



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: (yeah I deleted the series for various motives but the fics are still there), Blue Pearl is mute, F/F, Gen, Yellow Pearl/Blue Pearl hinted and established, follows the idea of Pearls Rebellion, headcanon: every gem from yellow diamond's court is a giant nerd inside, headcanon: everyone loves blue, headcanon: steven falls asleep on everyone, these are seven pages of pure fluff you're welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 02:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6066787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerMisty/pseuds/SerMisty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blue and Yellow begin to spend more time with Steven. He wonders if it is Pearl's idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Babysitters

**Author's Note:**

> lol remember when I said that there wouldn't have been any more oneshots about pearls on earth  
> Apparently I lied 
> 
> This is just fluff

At first, when Blue Pearl and Yellow Pearl start spending more time with him, Steven thinks it’s Garnet’s idea: that she must believe he is bored, with them being so busy over the drill and the thousands of pearls on the island, with Connie on a trip with her parents and his dad ill. Steven thinks that having either Blue or Yellow around is Garnet’s – successful – solution to his boredom. 

As it turns out, however, Garnet has nothing to do with it. Neither has Amethyst, nor Peridot, of course. 

«Pearl probably asked them to be your babysitters!» the purple gem laughs when Steven tells them. «They’re better than holo-pearl, that’s for sure!» 

It makes sense, Steven ponders. Pearl has been gone for days – Steven isn’t allowed to go to the Pearl’s Island without her permission, but he knows she is working hard for her friends out there; he is only worried – and sending Yellow and Blue to check on him would be, well, a typical Pearl thing to do. 

He is not so sure, though. 

***

Steven wakes up with someone shaking his arm and an unsettling smell up his nose. 

He opens his eyes to find out that the one shaking him is Blue and that she is pointing down the stairs with her free hand. She looks extremely flustered. 

«Oh, hi» Steven smiles, still half-dreaming. «How are you?» 

Blue just pulls him off the bed and drags him down the stairs. By the time he reaches the last step Steven is completely awake and aware of the fact that the microwave is burning. 

«Woah» he jumps a little. «What happened?» 

Blue quickly projects a hologram of herself, showing her actions few seconds before the microwave caught on fire. Steven immediately realizes what’s wrong. 

«You can’t put the fork in there!» he exclaims. 

The microwave makes a cracking sound and the flames threat to become bigger. Not knowing exactly what to do, Steven just runs and bubbles it: without oxygen, the fire is put down pretty fast. 

He sighs with relief. 

«You can’t put a fork in the microwave, Blue» he repeats, turning around. «It’s metal. If you do, well, this happens». 

Blue rubs her thumbs together and lowers her eyes, blushing. Steven immediately regrets his words. 

«But it’s okay!» he hurriedly adds. «Everyone does it the first time. I did it! Amethyst does it too, often. But I think she only wants to annoy Pearl». 

Blue smiles slowly until she covers her mouth to hide a silent laugh. Steven smiles back, reassured. He scampers a little, because he’s barefoot and the floor is cold.  
«Do you want to make together breakfast?» he asks, and Blue nods. 

 

Steven loves Blue. How could he not? She is so sweet and kind and cute and gentle. She reminds him of Pearl herself and of Lapis, but maybe that’s just the color palette. 

Blue learns things faster than anybody else Steven has ever met. She learned sign language in a matter of hours after he and Connie gave her that book as a gif, and now she is the one that teaches Steven how to do it properly. She still uses holograms anyway: they are quicker, and perfect when she needs to tell a story or a memory. 

And she can say so much with just a smile. 

Steven thinks it’s beautiful. Blue usually half-hides it, especially when it turns into a laugh, and he wonders why. 

They make together breakfast – but without the popcorn, since they can’t use the microwave – and Steven eats the most of it. He is happy to see that Blue, although slowly, cleans her plate.  
«How do you like eating?» he asks.  
Blue sings her answer: _“It feels new. I like it”_.  
«I’m glad! You can use my bathroom when you need to». 

Blue tilts her head, confused, and Steven blushes a little and decides not to go further. 

 

But oh, does Blue love new things. When Steven asks her what she wants to do, she points at the beach. She wants to go out, she wants to see places, she wants to live. 

Steven holds her hand while he runs around Beach City. He doesn’t need to drag her, since she is very happy to follow him. He introduces her to the Pizza Family and Mr. Pizza says that she is surely the best between all of his crazy friends; she shows her where the Frymans work – she _does_ get a little scared by Frybo; she signs it looks like a corrupted gem – and brings her to Funland Arcade. Blue doesn’t look very appealed by videogames, but quietly watches him play. 

_(And she manages to get him a Ranger Guy on the first try. She doesn’t understand why Steven is so happy)_. 

The place Blue loves the most, however, remains the beach. She runs and dances along the shore and laughs with no voice and wets her feet in the water.  
She sits on the sand next to Steven and builds a sandcastle with him, then inhales air she doesn’t need and smiles. 

She smiles a lot. 

«Can you swim?» Steven asks while putting a shell on the top of the sandcastle. Blue shakes her head. «I could teach you! But in summer, when the water isn’t too cold». 

Blue nods a few times. She puts a seaweed all along the sandcastle walls. 

«Why do you love the beach so much?». Steven asks again.  
Blue tilts her head, looks at the waves.  
_“It’s endless”_ she signs, slowly, so that he can understand. _“It makes me feel free”_.  
«But you _are_ free» Steven points out.  
Blue’s smile softens, if possible.  
_“I can never get enough”_.

 

Steven talks a lot when Blue is with him, because Blue is always interested in what he has to say. There’s no difference between the last Dogcopter movie and the strange dream he had the other night, Blue listens. Blue answers, too, with holograms or with hands, always with enthusiasm. Steven never bores her, and he’s glad. 

They stay on the beach for a while, until the sun goes down. Then, Steven’s belly reminds him that he is hungry and they make a stop to Lars and Sadie to buy some donuts. 

Even Lars is kind with Blue. Everyone is kind with Blue. 

They go back home and Steven keeps talking and Blue keeps listening. The bag of donuts empties soon after and they sit on Steven’s bed, laughing. 

«Show me a story?» the boy offers. «Something about when you were still on Homeworld». 

Blue’s smile disappears for a moment. Steven is already half way through an apology – maybe he shouldn’t have asked that – when Blue’s face lights up again and she projects a hologram: it shows herself, Yellow and Pearl back on Homeworld. One of the happy moments.  
Steven’s eyes fill with starts as he crouches closer to Blue to watch. 

He falls asleep in the middle of the memory, gently snoring on Blue’s lap. Blue slips him under the sheets and caresses his hair. 

When Garnet comes back home – just for a minute, just to check – she finds Blue asleep next to him, one arm around him, the faint light of a dream coming out of her chest.  
She doesn’t want to intrude, so she smiles and warps herself away – Steven’s safe. 

 

***

 

Yellow is a little more _complicated_ than Blue. She is arrogant, haughty, and always looks like she doesn’t really want to be there. 

Steven recognizes a lie when he sees one. 

He wakes up and at first he thinks he is alone, until he notices a shadow on the lower floor. He walks down the stairs and finds Yellow looking at the photo of the Crystal Gems hanging near the kitchen counter.  
«Good morning» he smiles. 

Yellow jumps a little. She turns around, sees him, recollects.  
«Hi, brat». 

Steven doesn’t take it personally. It still reminds him of Jasper, but she says that with a sort of affection and he decides to leave the matter for another day. 

He reaches her and sits on one of the tall chairs. 

«Great photo, right?» he says. «I took it the day I came to live here».  
Yellow nods, not looking away from the picture. She then must realize that Steven is waiting for a comment, so she just shrugs and hums: «They look very happy».  
«They were. Do you want to make together breakfast?»  
Yellow rolls her eyes.  
«I don’t eat».  
«Blue does» Steven tries.  
«I don’t». 

If there’s one thing that Steven has learned, is that it’s better not to push Yellow’s buttons. He gives up and prepares breakfast for himself. Yellow keeps wandering around the house, looking at the pictures, landing an eye on him from time to time.  
«We should take another photo» Steven says while eating. «One with Peridot and you two. You are all Crystal Gems now!»  
Yellow scratches her chin.  
«It would be appropriate, maybe» she agrees. «And interesting to try». 

Steven’s eyes widens as he comes to the realization that she has probably no idea of how a photography works. He grabs his phone and jumps on the chair closest to her.  
«Say cheese!»  
Yellow doesn’t, of course. She turns around with her mouth open, probably about to ask what he’s doing, and then he snaps the photo. Yellow stiffens at the flash and stays immobile for a couple of seconds. 

Steven shows her the picture on the phone screen, smiling.  
«See? It’s fine!» 

Yellow slowly nods. 

«Yes» she murmurs. «It’s fine». 

 

Yellow, unlike Blue, doesn’t really like to go out. She prefers to stay home.  
«You can go if you want» she tells Steven, but the boy is not intentioned to leave her alone. So he gathers all the board, cards and videogames he has and scatters them on the table in front of the couch.  
«Pick one» he says. 

Yellow frowns. 

«Is there a difference?»  
«Well, of course! This one is a very fun game with questions, and in this one you have to throw the dice. These are cards, we can play a lot of different games with them. Or we can play with the Two Players Mode on my golf videogame!» 

Yellow is sitting on the couch with her back straight, a position that resembles Pearl a little bit. She hesitates, raising one hand but not daring to point a finger towards any of the games. 

«I like them all» Steven smiles, reassuring. «Just choose the one that inspires you the most». 

Yellow looks at him like she can’t believe that he is really so committed in all of this. Eventually, she points at the golf videogame.  
«That one» she says. «But you’ll need to explain me how it works». 

 

Steven didn’t expect Yellow to understand both golf and videogames at the same time. It takes her two matches to get a hold of the controller and even then she just _doesn’t understand_ that the point of the game isn’t throwing the harder you can but actually sending the ball in the hole. 

Steven also discovers that Yellow is a sore loser. 

«This game is broken!» she complains. «It keeps telling me I’ve lost!»  
«That’s because you did» Steven puts one hand in front of his mouth to refrain from laughing.  
«I did not! Look at the score: I have the highest number!»  
«You have the highest number of hits. The point of the game» and it’s the third time he tells her that, he swears, «is to send the ball in the hole with the smaller amount of hits possible». 

Yellow throws the controller on the ground and crosses her arms. 

«I don’t understand human games» she mutters. «They’re stupid and boring». 

Steven picks the controller up and turns off the console. 

«Do you want to play something else?» he offers.  
«No» Yellow mumbles.  
«Do you want to watch TV?»  
«No» she repeats. Then she nods. 

 

Yellow helps him to bring the small television down the stairs and tidy up the table to put the TV over it. In this way, Steven explains, they can binge-watch a lot of episodes while laying comfy on the couch. 

_(Yellow has no idea of what binge-watching means, but she goes along with it)_.

She sits down and Steven jumps on the cushions next to her. Yellow stiffens a little, but doesn’t move aside. 

Steven excludes _Camp Pining Hearts_ , because he doesn’t want Yellow to end up like Peridot. He picks the whole series of _The Lonely Blade_ movies, instead. 

At first he is afraid they won’t catch Yellow’s attention. After all, she’s a fighter too. She may find lots of mistakes in them like Pearl did. 

To his surprise, Yellow is interested since the beginning. Of course she won’t admit it, glancing away every time she notices Steven is staring at her, but at the first fight scene she can’t keep the façade up.  
«Is this how White fought in the war?» she asks to nobody in particular. 

White is the name Yellow uses when she refers to Pearl, and so do the other pearls on the island. Steven could never use that, it feels uneasy and wrong, but Pearl responds to it like it’s perfectly normal.  
When Peridot once tried to call her by that, however, she ended up with a spear near her nose and a warning to never, never call her White again.  
Steven doesn’t really understand the truth behind these names, but it’s not his problem. Pearl is just Pearl, and this is what matters. 

«I don’t think so» he then replies. «She says these aren’t real sword techniques. But I think they’re cool».  
«They sure are» Yellow agrees. Steven’s eyes fill with stars. 

They spend the rest of the day in front of the TV. Steven gets up only once, around dinner time, to come back soon after with a bowl of popcorn. Yellow is by now indisputably invested in the story and eats some of it without even noticing.  
«He was the Evil Samurai President all this time?!» she jumps on the couch in the middle of the fourth movie.  
«I know, right?» Steven jumps after her. He hides the cover of the box just in case. 

It’s almost midnight and they are still watching the last movie when Steven falls asleep. He leans against Yellow’s arm and closes his eyes. He can’t see Yellow smiling slowly. 

When Steven wakes up the next day the TV is back on its rightful place, the movies are all piled up on his shelf and he has mysteriously teleported into his own bed. 

He giggles. 

 

***

 

Sometimes, and it’s happening often to his delight, Blue and Yellow both stay at home with him. It’s a perfect combination, because he can eat together breakfast with Blue and play videogames with Yellow; then they go out – Yellow mutters something about how cute Blue is and how much she hates it – and buy pizza to eat in front of the TV during the evening. 

He has so much fun he almost feels guilty. He should miss the company of the Crystal Gems, of Connie, of dad, and he does; but Blue and Yellow are also so great to hang around with. 

The sun has gone down since a couple of hours and they are in Steven’s room watching the mid-season pre-finale of _Under the Knife_ when the warp lights up and Pearl appears. 

«You’re back!» Steven almost screams, running down the stairs and catching her in a tight hug.  
«Just for a while» Pearl smiles, caressing his hair. She waves a greeting to her friends. «Are you having fun with Blue and Yellow?»  
«Very! Do you want to join us? We’re in the part where the doctor insert the patient’s legs into his brain!»  
Incredibly, Pearl manages to keep a straight face.  
«Why not? But it’s almost your bedtime».  
«Just for a while! I’ll make more popcorn!» 

Steven runs behind the kitchen counter and Pearl follows him.  
«I’m relieved you like spending time with Blue and Yellow» she says. «I hoped so».  
«I love them! They’re both so kind» Steven replies. Then he lowers his voice and whispers: «I know you forced them to come here, but I think they’re having fun, too». 

Pearl frowns.  
«I forced them?»  
«Well, you told them to check on me, right? To be my babysitters?» Steven notices Pearl’s confusion and quickly adds: «That’s what Amethyst said». 

Pearl laughs a little and glances towards her friends: from the way their heads are turned she can tell they are not exactly _watching_ the TV in that moment, and Pearl is glad Steven is still too short to see over the counter. 

«I didn’t tell them anything, Steven» she reveals. «It’s their own idea. They wanted to get to know you better. To become friends».  
Steven opens his mouth in shock, stars in his eyes.  
«Really?» he looks baffled. «Why?»  
«Because they think you’re special, as I do». 

Steven’s smile covers half of his face. He grabs Pearl’s hand and they go up the stairs to reunite with the other two, eyes again fixed on the television. Steven jumps on the ground between Yellow and Blue, popcorn on his lap, and Pearl sits on his bed just behind them.  
«Hi, guys» she whispers. Blue waves one hand, Yellow mumbles a sound of recognition, invested in what is happening on the screen. 

Pearl looks down to Steven, to his smile, to how he leans against Yellow’s arm and offers Blue the bowl of popcorn. 

He’s happy.  
They’re happy.  
She’s happy. 

«So, what did I miss?»


End file.
